How Big Is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan?

When Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan was officially listed for pre-order last week, gamers everywhere began to take issue with the purported size of the title. Platinum Games and Activision have listed an estimated size of between 7 and 8 GB for the game, which seems small in comparison to the amount of data a blu-ray disc can hold (50 GB). This is definitely disconcerting for some fans, because they see it as an indication of the size and length of the game itself, which may or may not be true. With that in mind, let’s discuss what the size of Mutants in Manhattan really means and provide some context to the debate.

Although it may seem small for a modern video game, 8 GB is actually a fairly standard size for games nowadays. As a matter of fact, Transformers: Devastation (the last title Platinum Games worked on) clocks in at about the same size, and it’s very likely that both of these games use the same engine. To be fair, this information does indicate that we probably aren’t going to get hundreds of hours of entertainment from Mutants in Manhattan, but I’m not sure how realistic it is to expect a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game the size of Fallout 4 or Skyrim.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan

To further put things into perspective, consider the size of the last big TMNT game we got. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows was about 2.6 GB in size, clocking in at nearly 1/3rd the size of Mutants in Manhattan. The quality of that title was questionable at best, but this game is a collaborative effort from the minds of both IDW and Platinum Games. When we consider everything we know about the game, its file size isn’t entirely relevant, is it? Far too much significance is placed on the size of games in the modern gaming landscape, and that is a practice we seriously need to stop.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan has every opportunity to be just as large and engrossing as Transformers: Devastation, which has provided some players with over 100 hours of enjoyment. Size isn’t everything, and it doesn’t tell the whole story. Do you know what tells us more about this game than its size? The Achievements which indicate that you’ll be able to travel more than 150 miles within the game. How crazy is that? Who cares how big the file for the game is, all that really matters is whether or not the game is fun. We won’t know if that is the case until it is fully released, but everything we have seen so far indicates a pretty awesome gaming experience.

What do you think? Is Mutants in Manhattan too small? Does file size really matter? Feel free to share your thoughts either in the comments below or via Twitter/Facebook.